Coyotedancer

I don't solo my Defenders generally, so speaking from a with-partner-or-team perspective... Either my Time/Dark or Darkity/Dark/SoDark. I find them both a good combination of support and debuff, so useful for most things.

I know what the future looks like for my Oranbegan characters... the Temple magi and the Voyagers in particular. It's a place that comes together on the other side of the Battalion Wars. A new city built around the existing temple complex, called Nova Primeva. It's a fun setting that I haven't done a whole lot with. 'Very much a mix of old magic and future technology that grew out of an alliance of necessity between the Oranbegans and Agincourt. A few of my characters are professional time travelers; magi-and-others from Ordus Chronos. They're from Nova Primeva, and are playing around in the modern era (What they call "The Age of Troubles"-) for one reason or another. SO, if you ever run across Lasya or her brother Dorian (Graceful Ivory Mask and Gentleman Spectre) or Olympia and Morgan (Code Merlin and Code Mordred), ask them about it. And about what the Thorn Tree looks like when her people aren't stuck being a grouchy crowd of dusty old ghosts. 🌞 ("Do you have ANY IDEA how many petals a tree that size can produce in the spring?" Ivory says, laughing. "To say that she blankets the city is an understatement. I firmly believe that she aims to carpet the world. Which we, of course, use as an excuse to have a week long street party. As any proper civilization ought.")

I was in the betas for Wildstar, and remember very gently warning the people that I played with that it might be a bad idea to get too attached to that game after what had happened to the City. They didn't believe me when I pointed out that NC was likely to have less patience with a very niche, very western-focused game. I gave up on that one before it went live, but for those guys' sake I still wished Wildstar well. It didn't get a happy ending.

Being one of those people who liked leveling red side better than blue (and whose "favorite" was a Stalker-), on some of the Live servers it was dead as doornail LONG before Going Rogue came around. I was on Liberty. The largest team I was ever on was a duo... with FCM. (FCM is Mr,Coyote) Even seeing another player character bouncing around was rare. Maybe it was more active on Virtue or Freedom, but out in the suburbs? Nope. 'Population of jack all.

No one will ever be happy with anything the Powers That Be come up with, Bill. You know that as well as I do.

I'll keep my blue-side Stalkers and Brutes (and my red-side Defenders and Scraps), thanks. Count me firmly in the "Side-switching was a Good Thing" camp. Chasing some illusion of real balance in the City is a snipe hunt and always has been.

This idea I love. I hope the DevPeeps can make it so.

*nods* My world was pretty unsettled around that time. I guess that's why, even now, the whole Sunset process feels like it made less of an impact on me than it otherwise might have. The City going away was certainly a hit, but I had other things to deal with that honestly put it on a back burner. I think I just couldn't spare the Spoons to really process it because there were other, more important demands on my brain-space. (Scary medical issues. Not my own, but probably even more terrifying because they weren't.) I did my massive screenshot project and later the Titan thread... FCM and I FRAPSed a lot of runs with our favorites for remembrance's sake... But it was all just -A Thing That Happened- rather than *The* Thing, if that makes any sense. I eventually found myself in the City again a couple of years later via an invite to the SCoRE server, and it wasn't until that point that I really had the chance to think about it and realize how much I'd missed playing the game. Leila had made me plushie versions of my favorites by then, and I had resin versions of them as well, so the characters had never really gone away... The two drawings I'd commissioned of Kestrel & Cardinal and Ty'ree & Asherion were still on the wall next to my desk. But the physical act of playing the game? I honestly hadn't thought about how much of a missing link that was. And then a few years after that, the code finally got to "fly free" and this place came online, meaning I could play with friends who hadn't, for one reason or another, been in on the Hidden City. And then we talked the CoyoteNephews and their mom into playing. And I've taken a few thousand more screenshots. 👍

That's actually been my experience as well... But I'm an active-only type farmer. I think it's made things harder on the AFKs than it has on us.

You can't do much in the way of base building with the amount of Prestige you'll earn with a solo SG. You'll scrape to be able to afford a few teleporters and a storage table. And sometimes even to make the "rent". Ask me how I know that. 😝 (Yeah. I lived it back in the Liberty days. I wouldn't trade our Homecoming base-building system for that kind of nonsense again. Ever. It was anything BUT fun as a would-be builder.)

Also worth keeping in mind... A lot of Old Timers have on some pretty thick Nostalgia Goggles when it comes to the City. Those "Good Old Days" definitely had some issues of their own. They weren't a perfect wonderland of gloriously team-centric HappyHappy JoyJoy.

Also, changes were made to aggro and damage type. Those are also listed in the patch notes and may affect your farmers.

I don't have as much experience herding a Guardian, but I can tell you for sure that the Adept has *always* done that... I can't even begin to tell you how many times I've lost Cardinal (My old main's perma-summoned Adept-) to Warhulks and exploding cysts and goon's AoEs targeted on Kestrel (Who's a melee type-) because the floating goofball decided that he, with all his RANGED attacks, really, really wanted to be right in the middle of a fight, in the explody-stabby-whatever's face. <_< They're just not smart guys, those Adepts. I can't imagine the Guardians' and Strikers' AI being much sillier than theirs is.

Then what the devil is Astra complaining about? He can turn off the Incarnate powers on his runs if he wants to. Unless this is yet another one of those "If *you people* aren't ALL playing my way, then I can't be happy!"-situations. 😝

How about just adding an option to the HM content that disables Incarnate powers for them?

On that note.... There are a couple of things that would be epic as "Base Template" starting options, if we could ever get those set up. Things that I know are possible with some back-end tinkering, but that can't ordinarily be done out here on Homecoming by any of us as players. The ability to start with a real "one room" base using the full grid, for instance, either of the traditional sort with bounding walls or as a filled-in "build above the plot"-type without them. Or having that filled in one-room style with "horizon to horizon" water or grass tiles already in place.

I was glad to have Juno (untouchable Siren-) a couple of times there, so I know what you mean. 😆

Not to mention that there seem to be a fair few people out there who prefer running those TF "at level"... and who have complained here several times that having exemped 50s joining their teams ruins the experience for them. Something about those 50s being "overpowered" by having a few extra powers and so making the at-levels feel useless... So, yeah. Even if the devs want 50s on those lowbie teams, lowbie character's players may not. Which presents a bit of an issue.

Could be. Kes was built primarily for absolutely ridiculous recharge with a side order of regeneration. Positional defense wasn't one of my high priorities with her. I may tinker around and come up with a "Dodge ALL THE THINGS!"-build for her one of these days. It would probably require sacrificing some of her recharge, though, which would mean losing the perma-summon on Cardinal. (That's her Adept. He represents a good chunk of her "extra" damage-)

Yep. As I said in my earlier post about running my DB Scrapper through Sister Valeria's arc, those PvP Specials apparently won't save you from being yoinked right back into the middle of things. (Kes has both the Shield Wall and Glad Armor and was still getting teleported pretty regularly when I was trying to do a bit of kiting between two of the monsters-)

I didn't build that one... But there's a thread about it in the Base Building section. It involves a few hundred letters stacked together.

I showed them the waterslide at Oasis and they loved it. Making one of their own was a little fiddlier than either wanted to commit to, though. 😆

Yeah... I have to agree, too. You shouldn't need to be 50 to get Particles from the WST. That seems off if the idea is to encourage people to do the taskforces.

The CoyoteNephews want me to add something that wasn't on the polls... Slippery surfaces. They really, really want the oil slick and ice patches that they can slide around on and Frostfire's ice ramps.

There are at least three of us who still have dedicated sound cards. (Sound Blaster for-eva, yo. 😆 I like my Z, even if Creative are asshats. ) It would be really nice to have the directional sound back... I do miss it... But if it's not to be, it's not to be.